Death is not a subject we often think about or are even
comfortable talking about. In fact, a number of contemporary sociologists
believe that despite widespread liberalization of thought in modern times,
death is one of the topics where the extent of taboo has actually grown. What
is death?
An important law of physics, the law of conservation of
energy, states that the total amount of energy in a closed, or isolated, system
remains constant over time. What this means is that in such a system, energy
cannot be created or destroyed. It can however change forms. We also know from
Einstein's theory of relativity that mass and energy are one and the same
thing. Thus, we can infer that in a closed system, the total mass and energy of
the system stay unchanged over time.
Given that the universe is such a closed system, it is
understandable that there is no new energy or mass being created inside it;
there’s instead a shuffling and metamorphosis of forms that’s happening
constantly. Take the example of a snowflake, an ice cube, a water droplet and a
steam vapor. What do you notice is common in here? All these are nothing but
different expressions of the same entity. While the underlying essence of each
of these forms is water, we attach different labels to each of the forms and,
in the process, get distracted from connecting with the truth.
This is what explains death. The universe is constantly
evolving and, in the process, continues to take different forms– galaxies,
stars, planets, animals, plants and humans. All the forms arise from the
universe and dissolve into it, but are neither born nor die. Death is a concept
of the mind and of its identification with the body form.